Hungry
by aguarosa
Summary: Drabble about the choice Alastor was forced to make because of the circumstances thrust upon him.


Hungry.

This is a dark Alastor-centric drabble I came up with.

TW: Violence, accidental murder, implied starvation, implied cannibalism, implied racism. It's Alastor, so pretty much all of these topics are to be expected with anything involving his character. Read at your own risk!

The air was humid that day.

It was muggy. It felt thick, and viscous, almost like breathing in tar. The heat choked me from the inside out, and every breath I took felt stale. But there was only so much one can do living in the Deep South. I was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was just me and my mother growing up.

She was a strict woman. Dark-skinned, with long, black hair that would curl at the roots till she put the special paste that made it all flat again, like the white kids with the nice shoes that lived more lavish. Like my father.

Ma always said that my father didn't see her for her skin color. His family didn't like that, wanted him to get married to one of the daughters of a tobacco farm owner. So he did what any man in love would do; sold everything he had and moved out to the Bayou to be with Ma.

Then he died. Fell ill and left ma with nothing but a baby on the way. She always told me my smile was just like my father's, and that it was like I was keeping a piece of him alive every time I showed it to anyone. So I decided from a young age that I'd smile all the time. Never fully dressed without one, anyways!

It wasn't long after the crash and people started running out of food. People went hungry.

Ma got sick. She died.

It wasn't too long after that I had lost my job at the station.

_I went hungry too_.

I began hunting, looking for sources of food to eat that we wouldn't have had to spend a fortune on buying, or waiting on the government line only for them to turn around and tell all us hungry folk that they were out of food.

I was on one knee, the butt of the rifle resting on my shoulder as I took in my surroundings. I heard rustling, twigs snapping somewhere towards the left.

I didn't want to tread too far away from the cabin, but if this was my only chance of bringing food home, then I had to.

The rustling got louder, but it still didn't sound like anything big. A deer, a gator, nothing of the sort. I could hear the footsteps picking up, frantic. This was it!

Finally, a real meal to bring home, prep, cook, and eat! Skinning the poor deer alive, even if it was just a little doe, slicing the meat with the sound of the knife dragging at the wood beneath the flesh, as it cut through the still bleeding, gushing meat like butter.

My heart started racing, and my cheeks hurt from how hard I smiled uncontrollably at the thought as I brought the scope to eye level, making sure I held the gun was a few inches away from my shoulder so the recoil wouldn't leave a bruise again.

My heart started pounding, and I tensed from how hard I was trying not to shake from the adrenaline rush and end up missing my shot.

_Three._

The footsteps grew closer, I could feel the blood rushing in my ears, and almost everything else was drowned out. Thoughts raced through my head, but all I could think of was the gnawing hunger in my stomach when I realized this was my only shot at making it stop.

_Two_.

I was breathing so hard, almost hyperventilating. Everything blurred at the edges, and my hands and feet felt so cold. But my chest grew hotter, good God, I felt so alive!

_One_.

It wasn't just my breathing I was hearing. Someone was running, getting closer. My grin fell.

I pulled the trigger too late.

She was young, skeletal. No doubt because of the conditions we were all living in. But couldn't have been more than a teenager. The shot was precise, straight into her jugular as blood spurted from the exit wound in the back of her head.

She looked at me, eyes alight with fear, confusion, welling up with tears as she almost looked frozen within that moment. Tilting forward, her eyes glazed over, and she went slack, falling to the ground before the sound of the rifle firing could even finish echoing throughout the woods.

Blood pooled, sinking into the drying mud and grass, painting the ground red around her jaw and neck. I saw the back of her head where the bullet pierced through at an angle, and I could hear her whimpering, choking. What a sight!

I should've been disturbed, distraught about taking the life of another, a young woman at that, but I felt nothing. My mind was an ambient buzzing, like the static of the radio turning on before it was time to broadcast to the world.

I hadn't moved a muscle yet, still perched in the ground in the same position I had shot the woman in.

What felt like a cough bubbled up in my stomach, and I lifted a hand to cover my mouth, but it continued. It rolled over, layering into a fit of giggles, escalating into a fit of laughter and I couldn't see. Everything was blurry and my face felt moist.

The rifle fell to the ground, and I lifted my shaky hands to my face only to realize I was crying.

My chest and stomach burned with how hard I was crying and laughing, rocking and shaking, hands reaching up to grasp my wavy strands of hair, pulling and releasing, on and off.

It was unclear how long I sat there. I could feel the strain in my legs from crouching for so long, my feet fell asleep and the tingles racing up from them made my legs twitch, already shaking from the fit of madness that just occurred.

The woods around me were silent save for the sound of birds chirping and trees rustling, and it took a moment for me to realize something was missing.

The young girl went silent, no longer quietly weeping, or gagging on her own blood. She was gone for good, and the realization of what I did finally sank in. There was so much blood leaking onto the ground, still leaking and sinking into the wet dirt.

I stood shakily, hands and feet cold and shaky, eyes glazed over.

Looking down at the deceased body, the only thing that came to mind was the gnawing, painful hunger rising in the pit of my gut.

The body was still warm… Still _bleeding_… Still pumping…

The hatchet sheathed in the holster to my side made its presence known, and my fingers dragged ever so slightly along the carefully crafted handle, as a truly wonderful idea came to mind.

Never went hungry after that.


End file.
